South Branch intelligencer. [volume] (Romney, Va. [W. Va.]) 1830-1896, 1887-08-26
A DYING CUSTOM.
Louisiana the Only State Where
Duels are Frequent.
Some Duelling stories--The Pts
toll as a Peace-Maker.

We clip the following from the
Atlanta Constitution: within the
last ten years there have not been ten
duels fought in Georgia" said promi-
nent lawyer. Before the war duels
were more common, and yet they rarely
ended fatally. The politicians INDUCED
in them mostly, but once in awhile
gentlemen in private life took their
stations on the field. Political duels
were seldom bloody. But whenever
private gentlemen, who did not care to
let the general public into the nature of
their quarrel, went cut to fight, it was
generally the case that somebody was
left behind, and this was true to great
extent of duels now between private
gentlemen.
"The late Gen. Toombs sought to le-
| galize duclling, to incorporate it into the
present state constitution. He prepared
a section upon the subject, carefully
worded it and ingeniously argued its
adoption, but the convention refused to
indorse it. Not content with treating
the generals pet scheme in the discourte-
Gus manner it did, the convention went
further and adopted section that made
duclling illegal and prescribed some very
heavy penalties for its violation.
Zone of the saddest duels ever fought
in the south came off at the famous bar
in the Savannah river a few miles below
Augusta, known as "Sand Bar Ferry"
The actual meeting took place on the
soil of South Carolina, but the combat
ants were two popular Augusta gentle
men. What it was that caused Tilly
and Radcliffe to meet on the field of
honor no one knew exactly. 1t was ru-
mored that one had been rude to the
fiancee of the other and that the
failure to apologize led to the
fatal meeting. Whatever was the
cause it was trifling compared to the re-
suit, for as gallant and as handsome a
man as ever trod the ball room floor
| dyed with his life blood the sandy soil
of the river shore. lilly was fine
looking, wcll-built Irishman, and his
| connections were said to have been close
with the head of a titled family who
called him cousin. An expert marks
man, he could crack the bottom of a
f, champagne bottle as it lay with its neck
| downward on the table, sending the
1 f,t.f nt I'm ha IL.
breaking the neck. He presented n
! strong contrast to the delicate looking
Radcliffe, who seemed to be consump-
tive, whose pallid complexion and feeble
frame indicated that death by natural
cause was not very far away, and yet
Radcliffe killed lilly that morning
at the ferry, the expert shot falling
before the accidental aim of an indiffcr-
ent marksman. This was bad enough
but only half had been completed. Rad
| cliffe wandered westward and sought for
| getfulness and oblivion in the widest
excuses and the most reckless dissipa-
ton. But not even that could blast out
the handsome figure of the gallant Irish
man as it appeared in the early dawn of
that cventful morning when the two
faced each other in death combat; and
Radcliffe, alone in foreign state, with
out friends, blew his brains out with
pistol.
Louisiana is, perhaps, the worst state
| in the union for duelling.. The custom
is more generally kept up there now than
anywhere else in the United States be-
cause of the large French element. But
it is rapidly becoming obsolete there.
The duel with sabres or swords is giving
way almost entirely to duels with pis-
tolls, and the use of the pistol is death to
the practice"
"Why?"
Because the duel with sword is
really an affair of skill, of science: it is
not only an exhibition of courage, but it
is also a contest of skill, of strength,
and of endurance. II is seldom fatal.
But duel with pistols about as much
combat where chances altogether rule
as the much talked-of duel with pills.
where one pill was loaded with poison,
the other free, both exactly alike, and
the contest nothing more or less than u
selection. With pistols there is no telling
who will be the unlucky man; the most
expert shots are killed at the first fire by
/ people almost entirely ignorant Of the
use of the weapon. IL is nothing more
less than luck"
An Insect Mimic.